


Set a caged bird free

by Makioka



Category: Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm - Kate Douglas Wiggan
Genre: Coming of Age, F/M, Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-16
Updated: 2012-12-16
Packaged: 2017-11-21 07:40:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/595195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Makioka/pseuds/Makioka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rebecca Randall has arrived home from a year spent in Boston and Paris, and has a decision to make in regards to Adam Ladd who has been waiting for her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Set a caged bird free

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WickedWonder](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WickedWonder/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide, and hope you enjoy this glimpse of a more grown-up Rebecca.

Rebecca had not expected that her old home (gradually, unconsciously, Riverboro had assumed precedence in her heart over Sunnybrook farm) would have been so changed when she arrived back. She had known in her heart that of course it could not compete with the places she had seen- she hugged still the memories of Paris to her travel-dazzled heart, but she hadn't expected the stillness of it, the quietness of the small houses.  
  
She stepped down off the stage, driven by a younger man now, not by Uncle Jerry, and looked around her with a full heart and full eyes. First, before anything though, she had to say hello to Uncle Jerry and Aunt Sarah. It was just like old days, she thought for a second; the first friendly faces that greeted her in her home were the people she loved the best.  
  
She slipped in secretly through the side-door like she always had done, and there saw her friend Jerry, lying back in a chair, puffing at an old pipe in the sunshine that flooded through the window while Sarah stirred a cool jug of lemon tea. Impetuously she leapt forward and gathered them both within her arms, forgetting for a moment that she wasn't a ten year old anymore, dropping her umbrella on the floor, and hiding her eyes on the worn old sleeves, as she hugged Sarah and Jerry , enfolding them both triumphantly.  
  
Eventually she stepped back and remembered that now she was grown up, she carried a handkerchief and could use it appropriately. If they hadn't stopped her though, she would have undone her parcels there and then, to find the gifts she had bought for them- nothing much, just small things she thought they would cherish and that had been within her meagre budget. She had been provided for through her salary, and housed and fed also, but it still left little enough left over. Luckily Rebecca had been managing on thrifty principles for her entire life, and her Sawyer side had done her proud abroad, even if Aunt Miranda might have turned in her grave to see her arguing the cost of fish in French with a wrinkled old fisherman.  
  
They reminded her though that she had other people to visit, and other obligations to meet, and promised to visit in the evening, and partake in the joyous homecoming. She saw the wisdom, and with a kiss to each cheek, she promised to return, and with her customary ingrained neatness, she picked up her umbrella and dusted it down (such a contrast to the little pink one she had been so proud of when she was little,) and grasped the handle of her two little cases (the large trunk would be conveyed to the erst-while Sawyer residence later.)  
  
When she was gone, Uncle Jerry gave vent to a few happy tears that he wasn't too proud to hide from Sarah, who was feeling similarly affected by the sight of Rebecca, who they couldn't help half feeling was almost theirs in some way not of blood but of kinship.  
  
Meanwhile Rebecca had returned to the old brick house she had spent her teens in and stood admiring it for a moment. The once grey and gloomy house was now open to the world, pink roses creeping along the bottom, a window half open at the top, and a not-so-little girl who leaned from it and shouted shrilly. "Oh mother, here is Rebecca!" The doors opened, and a mass of humanity leapt forward as one to alternately shake, caress and scold their sister for not having sent word of her precise return date. Rebecca embraced them all as much as she could, and had her cases and parcels carried in style to the house.  
  
She looked round her family with joy. There was Aunt Jane, rather more faded than she'd been before Rebecca had left, and there was her mother- so much happier looking than she had ever been in the old days. She felt her heart swelling as she looked at them, and all the children, who after the first flush of welcome and excitement had grown rather shy, and who now hung back, not quite able to connect their Rebecca with this grown up young lady in white with a scarlet ribbon and sash.  
  
She smiled at them all as Jane led the way grandly into the parlour, a much more welcoming room now than it had ever been under Miranda's gaze. The improvements were not so very much material in nature, as that a hand of prettiness had swept over it- the ugliest of the ornaments had been concealed, the stiff lace antimacassars had been removed, the blinds raised, even at the cost of the carpet, and in the place of the heavy wax flowers, there now drooped first picked violets. Some secret corner of Rebecca's heart still grieved a little for the stern upright woman who had been her means to advance onwards and upwards, but if she mourned with a little sigh the disappearance of her aunt, it was silent and none saw it.  
  
Now though, she was ready to hold them entranced with the tales of her travelling and they were an appropriately impressed audience. She had lost none of her talent of enticing the eye and the ear with her stories and she held them spellbound, until the last of the daylight began to go and Aurelia left to go prepare the dinner. Then the party broke up and Rebecca left to wash and prepare herself for the meal. As she was bathing her face, she caught sight of a flash of gold on her wrist, and sighed as she looked at it. It was such a beautiful glimpse of gold that she could not quite bear to put it aside, but she reluctantly unclasped it, letting the watch nestle beside her water-jug on a pinless pin cushion, before the made her way downstairs.  
  
The memory of it still haunted her though, the soft cold caress of it on her wrist, and more than one of her siblings observed her glance absentmindedly at the bare skin of her arm, though they weren't sure what prompted such reflection. Jerry and Eliza visited as they had promised, and she had the singular joy of apportioning out the presents she had secured for all the family-  including a replica of the little pink umbrella for Jenny, that she and Aunt Jane shared a sorrowful laugh at over together, remembering the one that she had sacrificed to a well.  
  
Before the hour of bed arrived though, she begged for and received permission to dash quickly over to the minister's house, since she had promised, she said, to visit them both instantly on the moment of her return. Her mother granted permission, though as she said to Jane in the kitchen, she had grave doubts as to the propriety. Letting Rebecca run wild through the village as a child was one thing, to have her run in long skirts was quite another.  
  
Jane smiled as she washed the dishes. "If we hadn't let her go," she said, "she would have gone anyway, we can be assured of that." Aurelia conceded the point as she dried the dishes that Jane handed her, two sisters closer now in looks than they ever had been in the prime of their youth.  
  
Meanwhile Rebecca was sitting on the low pouffe in the minister's warm and welcoming parlour, Laura's arms around her in a gentle hug. "My dear Rebecca," she said. "I'm so glad you're back," every word was imbued with her usual graceful attitude, and Rebecca felt as though she could confide almost her every thought and confidence in her older and wiser friend. Tonight was not the night though to share her innermost secrets with the minister’s wife, and something in her delicate soul shrank from the deepest revelation that she had, with the embarrassment that the truly good have from something that doesn’t speak to their highest ideals. Child Rebecca might still be, but her taste and her judgement had been much improved from her time abroad, and now she was home she was finding that just as she had outgrown the small streets and houses of her childhood, so too her childish thoughts seemed worn and without use.   
  
  
They talked quietly of neutral things, and then Rebecca laughing stood to depart, knowing that tomorrow would be a long day. As she walked back in the dark, she shivered, the material of her dress too thin for the colder nights here, and she was grateful for the warmth that flooded her as she stepped into the kitchen.  
  
The next day saw Emma-Jane arrive early to embrace her Rebecca, who returned the effusion with interest. The world held many brighter stars than Emma-Jane, but few Rebecca cherished as much, and they spent  many interesting hours closeted in Rebecca’s room as she folded and put away her things, and showed her the styles she’d found in France.   
  
“Not that I’m so very stylish,” she admitted with dancing eyes. “French clothing is darling, but oh so expensive. I stuck mostly to my old Riverboro things stubbornly- if one can’t afford gay plumage, then borrowed feathers aren’t in the question, until Victoria- the professor’s wife you know- insisted that I accompany her out and buy a dress or two. “  
  
Emma was gasping alternately at the idea of calling the professor’s wife by her Christian name and at the elegant cut of the pink dress Rebecca displayed across the bed , when Rebecca asked her a question, she wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer to. “Dearest Emmy,” she said, as she tucked the gloves into a little drawer of their own. “While I was away, did Adam Ladd remember to send you a Christmas present, and a birthday present as well?”  
  
Emma Jane had never prided herself on being especially clever, but she knew Rebecca, and she could guess at the question that lay behind it. “He did,” she replied. “He sent me a  beautiful set of linen tablecloths and napkins, since he’d heard that I would be married soon enough.” They were gorgeous;  mother said she’d never seen lace like it.”   
  
She hesitated for a second, then added. “He’s never sent me a birthday present, though.” There was silence as they both turned over the articles on the bed, and with a rush of courage Emma-Jane asked  Rebecca, “What did he send you?”   
  
Rebecca picked up the watch from the  wash-stand and passed it to Emma-Jane, who held it delicately in one hand, awed at it, having never seen any watch on a strap before, or indeed any pocket watch nearly as pretty. “He didn’t send it,” she said abruptly. “He was in Paris that winter, and he gave it to me there. I didn’t know what to say, Emma-Jane.  He looked so strange, but he said nothing at all. Just that he was in Paris on business, and that he had a letter from Miss Maxwell to give to me directly. Then he gave me the letter and the parcel, and wished me a Merry Christmas and left.”  
  
  
Emma-Jane had nothing to add, and being wiser than most people gave her credit for, held her tongue on the subject, which let Rebecca speak and air her troubled thoughts.  “I just don’t understand,” she said passionately, “I don’t understand any of it. Mother looks so odd when I mention  Mr Ladd, and Aunt Jane so sad, like she’s remembering the past.” Calming, she gave her est-while schoolfellow an embrace, repenting of the outburst of emotion, and  together they made their way downstairs, though Emma couldn’t stop turning over what Rebecca had said, and could not forget the press of her friend’s hand as she asked her earnestly to accompany her to North Riverboro the next day to visit Adam Ladd.   
  
  
Rebecca had hardly expected to be greeted as she was on her return. Every person she passed in the street stopped to exchange news, to exclaim over her dress, and tell her how pretty she had grown. The face that greeted her in the mirror was the same one that had been there for years, but artful touches of dress and coiffure had ensured that where once she had been striking, now she was positively memorable, and it felt strange to her as though the Rebecca that gazed up at her was a  grown up Rebecca when she still didn’t feel grown up inside.  She hadn’t realised how interested the town was in her- little Becky Randall who had gone abroad as an assistant with a Professor’s family, shocking Riverboro to the core. To go to  Milltown or even  for the well-travelled Portland was daring enough, and it was well known that Adam Ladd went to New York at least twice a year, but for a young girl to go to Europe! The town couldn’t quite decide whether to be disposed to indignation, scandal, or delight. As on the whole they loved and valued Rebecca most of them came down on the side of cautious delight (and a little bit of pride that Rebecca would be taking Riverboro  values to the wider world.)  
  
  
As it happened, Rebecca's grand plan to have Emma-Jane accompany her to Aladdin's cave was doomed to fail, as Adam Ladd came to visit her that very afternoon with an offer to see her safely to Wareham to see Miss Maxwell. She didn't know how it happened, but when he came, somehow her family managed to drift out of the room, leaving her blushing alone in the parlour and looking anywhere but at her visitor. She disliked being made to feel  uncomfortable around him, when he was still Adam Ladd, her friend who she’d known almost as long as Emma -Jane. A small childish part of her wished passionately that nothing had changed, that she need never have grown up and had him look at her with that peculiar look in his eyes that she couldn’t read or understand. In most ways, she knew, she was still very much younger than him.  
  
  
However, after a time her flush faded, and she was able to answer his questions calmly, and gradually as he drew her out. It was like old days again, sitting beside him telling him of her adventures, though now instead of playing at cowboys and Indians, or stealing babies for the afternoon, she was talking of walking through Paris, of working for her first salary, which she spoke of with unconscious, touching pride that rendered her more attractive than anything else could have.  
  
  
Which Adam Ladd couldn't help noticing, naturally. It was like the old Rebecca was back, not the composed young lady with practice at answering correspondence, but the young girl who had convinced him to buy a large quantity of soap for which he had little to no use. Eventually, he rose and took his hat regretfully, wishing not to leave and rather hoping she would ask him to stay. No invitation was forthcoming though, and he arranged with Aurelia that he would take Rebecca to Wareham the next day, and bring her back at night. It was a plan that could've provoked question amongst most of the household if Aurelia hadn't fortuitously given Rebecca a shopping list of items that she must procure if she had a chance, and hinted that Emma-Jane might make the trip as well, at which Adam Ladd looked rather down in the mouth. Rebecca, with dimples lurking ,asserted her thoughts that if it was too much trouble, then the train would serve just as well, only to be shouted down by all concerned.  
  
  
The next day, when she had been handed up next to Adam Ladd and they went gaily trotting along, since the journey would take some time, she pretended not to notice the curious glances that assailed them, putting them to one side as the ignorance of people who didn't know what they were insinuating with their looks. Still, her cheeks were red before they made it out of the town, and it wasn't until they were driving through the cool green woods that she fully recovered her composure. It hadn't escaped her notice, now that her eyes had been opened to the flirtations of the world outside Riverboro, that a substantial portion of the town expected her to make a match of it with Adam Ladd, and while she could scarcely consider that he might also think such a thing, it was still a conjecture that had the power to make her blush, and rather crossly denounce that such a thing as matchmaking should ever exist.  
  
  
Aunt Jane and her mother had been of no help in quelling the gossip, when Rebecca had discussed with them her further plans for work (she had been offered a place at a high school not far down the river- close enough to visit home occasionally, and with a good enough salary that she could support herself), though she didn't share with them her deepest dream and wish, that one day she would be able to write, once she'd put away enough money and experience to last her  until she’d finished. They had been carefully noncommittal, until Hannah, down for a visit from her own farm to greet Rebecca back to the fold, had bit crisply through a thread in the shirt that she was mending and advised her to wait until she had had an offer before doing any such thing. "Marriage, comes quick," she had said placidly, her fingers flashing as she sewed. "Your husband won't want you working in a school so far away."  
  
  
Rebecca had bitten back her almost angry reply, more hurt than angered that her mother and aunt had offered no defense. She wasn't ready for marriage; she wasn't ready to settle down into quiet comfortable village life, with nothing to look forward to. Not unless she loved as passionately as she felt was possible, in which case she would brave rags and the cold by the side of her husband. Until that though; she was determined to be self-supporting, and her visit to Miss Maxwell was actually in aid of that goal. Miss Maxwell had been her path to being chosen as the professor's secretarial assistant, contacting old friends and calling in old favours to secure her an opportunity that many would have died for, and she hoped to once again ask the help and the advice of the teacher that she loved best of all.  
  
  
They hadn't yet decided between them what Rebecca was to call Adam now. Mr Ladd, as he pointed out, was ridiculously formal between two friends who had known each other for so long, and Rebecca thought Aladdin would sound rather silly in company. Adam, on the other hand, was far too familiar, and the question occupied them for some time upon the drive. They'd eventually agreed on a compromise between them; when they were alone he would be Adam or Aladdin as she liked best, and in company he would be Mr Ladd.  
  
Then once again he was asking her about France, how she'd enjoyed Paris and the professor's lecture tour, and indeed how she had enjoyed Boston, and she was able to wax lyrical, uninhibited about the beauties of both places, finding as much to love and enjoy in the ivy covered walls of the university as she had in Notre Dame in Paris. Spurred by his appreciation, she ventured to ask her friend what he had done while she was away, and was surprised by his rather bitter smile that didn’t fit well on his handsome face.   
  
He saw the surprise in her expression and made haste to explain. "It's nothing, Rebecca," he said with a rather brighter smile. "I'm afraid I miss Aunt Julia rather a lot. So I’ve spent most of my year working  or so it feels like. First France, then New York again, then back down to Riverboro.”  
  
Rebecca drew in an ashamed breath. She  thought that Aunt Jane might have mentioned it in a letter that Adam Ladd’s aunt had died, but it had  not really sunk in. Knowing that she was his only remaining family, she understood what a blow it must be to him, and rested a gentle hand on his arm. “I’m so sorry for your loss,” she said, her compassion lending depth to the cliched words in such a way that they sounded the sweetest that any words of condolence could have to him.  
  
The rest of their journey was surprisingly silent, but Rebecca was digesting the news, and Adam was thinking that there was very little better balm to grief than Rebecca sitting beside one as you drove. When they came to Wareham, Adam, with the easy gallantry that became him so well, plucked Rebecca's shopping list from her hand, and although he refused to take her purse at first, eventually acquiesced under the unyielding look of her dark eyes. Laughing a little at the incongruity of Adam searching for the best bargains in all the little haberdashery pieces that her mother wanted and which couldn't be found in Riverboro, Rebecca knocked on her beloved teacher's door.  
  
Miss Maxwell opened it with a smile that warmed Rebecca, and ushered her through until they stood in the small, beautifully decorated parlour, warm and alive with pictures and statues of the kind that Rebecca envied and loved the most. Her time in Paris had done nothing to dent her belief that of all people, Miss Maxwell was the one who should be doing great things, rather than just teaching in Wareham. Her vivid imagination had built several striking castles in the air for her teacher, and at one time she had rather cherished hopes of a match between her and Adam Ladd, though her new found distaste for matchmaking no longer thought the idea pleasant.  
  
Still it seemed wrong to her that nobody had plucked the beautiful flower from obscurity, and it still lingered. Drinking the delicate tea that Miss Maxwell loved the best, and eating the freshly baked cookies that she had procured, she launched into everything that had happened to her, not omitting even the unpleasant or the embarrassing to remember (the ardent young man who had insisted on kissing her hand for a minute as he stared at her, yielded them both a hearty laugh, though at the time Rebecca had been racked by the most terrible pains of embarrassment.) Then as the sun moved round, and bathed the room in the choicest of light, they began to talk of her future.  
  
Rebecca had always imagined that she would teach, like her friend; had cherished secret hopes of writing as well, but been level headed enough to know that doing both was probably not possible without one of them suffering. Now though, as she listened to Miss Maxwell- it felt so odd to say Emily as she'd been invited to do- she realised that her friend thought her capable of flying even higher.  
  
"I thought you were the best for the secretary job," Miss Ma -Emily said with a smile. "I couldn't rest until you had it, knowing what time abroad could do for you. Did it disappoint you how small the world really is?"   
  
Rebecca shook her head, "I can't believe you could think so," she said honestly. "Paris was as strange to me as you can imagine the Hottentots being. I felt like I was in a wonderful dream most of the time, and I think I can speak French rather better." She was hesitant to say thank you again; last time Emily had brushed all thank yous aside with ease and seemed uncomfortable at being thanked for her role.  
  
"Would you go back?" she was asked quietly.  
  
Rebecca weighed her life against itself. On the one hand, Paris with its magical wonders, and the sense she'd had that there she could write to her heart's content, could see and do things that would never be possible in America. On the other hand, her family, her friends, the job she must get, Emily and Adam. With her customary fairness she hesitated, then replied as quietly, "I do not know. I can't be sure."  
  
Emily nodded as though a question had been answered, if not exactly to her liking. "I had guessed so," she said thoughtfully.  
  
The words tumbled out of Rebecca now, a chance to think and explain how conflicted she felt. "I want to work," she said, "I want to do something great, make a difference to the world. I used to think that if I could be the editor or even the assistant editor of the Wareham Pilot that I would have reached the pinnacle of what life could give me. Now I don't think I can rest until I have achieved something with my life, been more than just the little girl from Sunnybrook all my days."  
  
"And marriage?" came the quiet reply.  
  
Rebecca took a sip of her rapidly cooling tea, and stared at the delicate china pattern of her cup. "Some day," she replied. "But not right now."  
  
"Not even Adam Ladd," Emily asked, and finally the secret that Rebecca had been gradually unveiling in her year away from home was laid bright and bare between them on the table, and Rebecca fought the urge to squirm away from it.  
  
"Yes," she finally, bolstered by the kindness in the other woman's eyes. "Even Adam Ladd. I-I'm too young. I have too much to do."  
  
"If you married him, you'd have money and time," Emily suggested softly, as though she were playing devil's advocate.  
  
Rebecca shot her a shocked look, the fiery flush that spread over her face denoting as plainly as anything else that such a thought had never crossed her mind. "That would be a shabby reason to marry somebody," she said firmly. "I would want to be a good wife to Ad- to anyone that I marry. I just wish it could be easier. I love Adam, but I'm not sure it's how he would want me to love him, and I'm not ready to marry anybody anyway."  
  
Emily reached across and clasped her hand, long cool fingers calming her. "Nobody can make you marry against your will," she said softly. "Remember that. Adam is a good man, and if you refuse him, he will not resent it. He expects it even, I would assume, since after all he is a great deal older than you."  
  
Rebecca gave a half laugh- half sob. "I'm not afraid of that," she said. "I'm afraid I won't be able to say no, despite all my good intentions."  
  
Before she left the house, Emily helped her bathe her tear-stained face, and promised her once again that she would forward any job opportunities in the post. When Rebecca left the house, she was almost as cheerful as she had been going in, and Adam Ladd helped her back up, showing her with a smile the various small packages he'd spent his own time gathering.  
  
When he stopped the horse and proposed that they go for a walk through the woods before they went home, Rebecca sucked in a great shaking breath and without words assented. Strolling through the mossy cool woods calmed her, even in the fast darkening twilight, and she could almost forget what she assumed the purpose of this was.  
  
Adam's eyes were dark and intent as he let her perch on a lichened rock to the cost of her white dress. "I had intended to wait longer," he said slowly, "but your face gave me hope yesterday and today. You must know what I wish to ask you." The silence of the woods was deafening, not even a bird stirred in the trees, and Rebecca clasped her suddenly shaking hands together. "Will you marry me, Rebecca Rowena Randall?" he asked, sudden hope flaring in his eyes.  
  
The words would be so easy to say, she knew that. So easy to say yes to her Mr Aladdin, to allow him to care for her. Life would be easy, and she could easily love him. But something of the Randall fire and Sawyer grit held her back, made her say slowly that she thanked him, but couldn't accept. She saw the crumbling of his posture, and the deadening sense of loss in his eyes, and grasped his hand lightly in her own. "Five years," she said, hardly believing her daring. "Five years to make my impact on the world if I can, and to pick myself up if I can't. Five years to prove myself worthy of you, and of my own dreams."  
  
He began to speak eagerly, to protest against her estimation, but the spirit was on her strongly, and she withheld her hand once more. "No ties," she said steadily. "If you marry before the time is up, I will dance gladly at your wedding and be happy for you." Seeing his face, she stood up herself once more, and added, "It's not so long to wait. Long enough for me to grow up and see the world as much as possible, so that when we marry I can hope to match you."  
  
He bowed his head, and accepted her decision, frankly and honourably, and greatly daring, she held out her hand and let him wrap his fingers round it, and walk with her back to the road.  
  



End file.
